


The Monster

by sherwoodfox



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Character Study, Childhood, Gen, implied future relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-20 19:07:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sherwoodfox/pseuds/sherwoodfox
Summary: After school, Zolf J. Kimblee liked to go play in the warehouse.Some other things liked to play there, too.





	The Monster

“I’ll be home tonight, okay? Don’t get into trouble until then, and go to your lessons.” This Zolf’s mother said to him in the morning, when the light was still orange where it came through the window. She was dressed in her uniform and had her working bag slung over her back, her hair tied tightly to her scalp. This was what she always told him, every morning.

“Yes, mum,” he said, and she smiled at him, bending to kiss his forehead.

“I know you’ll be good,” she replied, an automatic soothing of her own fears, and then she turned and left, closing the door to the tiny two-room apartment behind her the way she always did. The boy- who was now ten years old, and hence, old enough to watch himself- stared at the chipping white paint there for a few seconds with flat blue eyes, before moving away to find something to do.

The apartment was always the same- it had been the same since he was five, when they had moved in here off of the street, when he had just become old enough to be left alone so his mother could go back to cleaning things, instead of panhandling.

The walls were thin (thin enough to let the arguments of the neighbours spill in) and peeling, the beds (in the same room, separate corners, it had been for his birthday two years ago that Zolf had gotten his own) were small and hard and full of holes. The kitchen-bathroom too, was bare, lit usually by candlelight, because the light fixture in the ceiling didn’t work- but the sun was rising now, and so there was little need for such things. In all, it wasn’t such an usual image for a place like this one, a former mining town that was trying to move fast enough to keep up with the rest of the world- and hence, lived in two states, one of the comfortably wealthy face and another of the poverty-stricken underbelly.

Zolf fixed himself a breakfast of bread and water and sat still as he ate it. Perhaps another boy would have taken more, gluttoned himself in the absence of authority, but he did not. He had always been a very well-behaved child.

He knew he would have to leave the house soon. Several blocks away, there was a grammar school run by a charity, that offered lessons in reading, writing, and basic arithmetic to children who couldn’t afford private tutors. They also served lunch. Zolf’s mother had always thought the place to be a blessing, and he didn’t mind going. He never seemed to mind anything, really.

Upon leaving with his knapsack on his back, Zolf locked the door behind himself, and slipped his copy of the apartment key into the back pocket of his worn pants.

The air smelled of mildew and dust.

Zolf spent the afternoon following his classes in the warehouse. The warehouse was his secret place- something no one else knew or cared about. It had been abandoned long before he had ever made use of it, and its insides contained nothing but stacks of empty crates, a storage space for storage spaces. No one came here anymore. There was a hole in one side, a place in the wall where the metal curved in on itself, bent and broken- a hole large enough, certainly, for a boy. 

Zolf liked how quiet the warehouse was, when he was inside. He liked the fact that there was no one around to watch him, no one there to listen to him think. He also enjoyed this complete kind of solitude- no one, after all, knew he was there. It was an unmarked space in his day, something that was real in his mind only, and as such it was a little like another world. A world all to himself. And like any boy with a secret clubhouse, he had customized his, with cushions from chairs found by the roadside, collections of empty bottles from the trash behind the bar. Once again, these things were entirely his, for no one else knew he had them- no one else remembered that they existed.

Today was a warm day, almost too warm. That orange sun had turned into a scorching ball of fire that looked on from overhead, silencing even the insects in its gaze. Zolf had had trouble keeping up with the lessons today, same as everyone, the air was too stifling for math and cursive. Too stifling for any kind of thought. Even now that he was alone, he found he didn’t really want to do anything, but more than that he didn’t want to leave. Walking anywhere was pointless, and an effort that was too much to put in on an afternoon like this one.

Perhaps, he thought, he would lie down for a bit on the chair cushions, minding the springs, let his eyes close. Those things weren’t really very comfortable, but they looked plenty comfortable to him just then. A few moments with nothing but his own breathing to occupy him would refresh him after suffering all this heat, guaranteed.

So he curled his narrow frame into the cushions, hidden from the sun by the few wooden crates, and let himself slip away to a perfect blackness, without a single dream.

When Zolf woke again, it was to a loud, metallic banging noise, a harsh sound that was like a kick directly to his heart, setting it in rapid motion too soon after the slow depths of sleep. And the shock was doubled when he opened his eyes, for the warehouse was dark inside, the high windows let in no more light save that of the moon. How long had he been asleep? Far, far too long, his mother must have come home by now. What was he going to do? He didn’t know how to deal with this, and so a yellow tightness formed in his body, the colour of anxiety. What was it that had woken him? The echoes of it still seemed to ring-

Oh, and from across the warehouse another sound reached his ears, a heavy and ungainly thump, followed by what sounded like a whimper.

What in the world?

“Please,” said a voice, the voice of a middle-aged man, nasally and high in his throat. “Please don’t. I didn’t mean to. I’ll do anything you want, so, please-”

Zolf sat up, his heart still moving fast in his chest, paralyzed by the dark and the uncertainty of the situation. There was someone else in here, and that was alarming, because it violated Zolf’s understanding of this place in a way he didn’t like. Had the man seen him? Surely not, it was so dark, and his voice was coming from the other side of the pile of crates the boy had hidden himself behind. Still, Zolf sat tense, unsure of what to do, trying to rein his breath back in. 

“You must be pleased with yourself,” said another voice suddenly, and the sound of it cut over the man’s whimpers and pleas like a knife would slice through butter. It was a high, burning kind of voice, and something about it made Zolf’s spine tingle. There were two people here, but one was very different from the other.

“No- no I’m not- I swear-”

“Why not? You managed to hide from us for this long. You should be proud.”

The second voice punctuated that statement with a soft laugh that vibrated off the steel walls of the building, making itself through echo larger than it should had been. Zolf realized then that he had absolutely no idea if the speaker was a man or a woman- or young or old, or really anything at all, other than quite certainly _malevolent._

Still, he already found himself calming down some. Surely, this had nothing to do with him, and no one knew he was here. He could probably just wait it out, and then go home, and none would be the wiser. They would leave, wouldn’t they? They couldn’t stay long. Despite the uncertainty of it all- or perhaps, because of it- a kind of curiosity was alight in his chest. This situation was very exciting for some reason, he wanted to see it.

“Listen. Listen, I’m sorry, I really am,” the man was saying as Zolf edged his way slowly and quietly around the crates that disguised him, keeping his movements light and his head low. If he stretched just a little, yes, like that, he could see around the corner with his figure still in shadow.

“I promise, if you spare me, I’ll do anything. I’ll work for you again. Those experiments- I’ll do whatever you want,” the man continued, and now Zolf could see him. He was a squat kind of fellow, rotund, and sweat glistened on his bald head in the moonlight. He was on his back- perhaps that thump earlier had been his being tossed into such a position- and he held his hands up before his face as though to shield himself from some bright light. He looked a little like an insect, to Zolf.

“I know you would,” continued the other voice, and Zolf couldn’t see the speaker, which was bad because he desperately wanted to. “For a while, anyway. But you’ve already shown us you can’t be trusted, and…well, you know too much.”

“No!” The man bleated, and he started to scootch his way backwards across the floor, crying as he did so, perhaps to get away. A high, clear laugh- brighter and hotter than the last, like a whip of pure flame- followed him, and then the second speaker stepped into view.

For a second, Zolf wasn’t sure what he was looking at. The- man? woman? person?- was wearing very little, so thick stripes of white flesh gleamed in the moonlight, hard muscles standing out in the thighs and arms and belly. Barefoot. Dark strands of hair like a spider-plant hung across stocky shoulders and down to sharp hips- he saw some mark below the hemline of the skirt-like thing the person wore but of what it was the light was too poor to see. She? Or he, it seemed easier to think that way- folded his arms behind his back and cocked his head like a cat, and Zolf noticed then how sweetly he was smiling. Like he was playing a game, having fun. He had a very youthful face- round cheeks, sharp eyes, a wide mouth- and for some reason, that almost-cute little smile made Zolf’s body heat up in a way he had never felt before.

“But I’ll listen,” he said in that high voice, still taking slow, pointed, predator’s steps towards the blubbering man, and something about that delicate movement was very sinister indeed. “What will you do for me? If I spare you.”

The man immediately broke down, tears streaming from his eyes, his jaw waggling for words to fill it. “Anything,” he choked. “I’ll work much harder. I won’t try to run away again, I’ll- I’ll restart the initiative- anything you want.”

The strange pale person tilted his head to the other side, putting one hand under his chin, like he was considering something. Zolf had a feeling that he wasn’t considering anything at all. There was something about the little lift at the corners of his white mouth that made Zolf think the decision had already been made, regardless of whatever the man said. Zolf couldn’t blame him- he doubted that a guy like that would be very much good for anything.

“Well…let me think...” he said, his voice still powerful enough to silence the man, who had put two sweaty hands together in some kind of prayer. As the other opened his mouth again, Zolf had an instant to notice a pink tongue flick over white teeth sharp enough to be called fangs, and then-

_“Nah.”_

There was a flash of brilliant red light and the pale figure was gone, replaced suddenly and swiftly by a large gray wolf with glistening yellow eyes. The beast lunged for the man on the floor, who screamed pathetically, and then its fangs were buried in his throat, tearing the flesh there like a child would tear tissue paper. Blood squirted across the warehouse to surprising distances, and Zolf could only stare, transfixed, as the man was changed from a man into a puddle of shredded meat- could only listen as his last choked breaths gave way. Even after he was still the wolf tore at him with a vengeance, ripping chunks of flesh from his chest and legs and tossing them aside, moving like something made insane with uncontrollable rage.

It was amazing.

After a few moments of this, the wolf seemed to calm itself, the frenzied clawing settling into a lazy pace around the carcass, which was now entirely unrecognizable- as though an entire pack had gotten at it, instead of just one. Its fur was more red than gray, now, and it padded lightly off to one side where- to Zolf’s surprise, and delight- the red lighting flickered once again and the animal was replaced by the human, who was white and pure and clean of the gore, and whose hair fell in elegant lines to rest across his body.

Zolf had a feeling that he was looking at an angel of some kind. There was no other explanation for it.

For a quiet moment, the being’s eyes- which, now that the lighting was improved, Zolf could see were purple- drifted lazily across the scene, finding the bloodied mess once more.

“Stupid,” he muttered, and then he stood, and the crimson light touched Zolf’s eyes for the last time as the figure was replaced by a huge black raven, which took flight out and away through one of the high broken windows in the warehouse.

The silence that came across the place after that was much emptier than it had been before. Zolf knew instantly that he was safe- the thing (angel or spirit or...who knows what) wasn’t coming back, and the man wasn’t doing anything. So he stood from his hiding place and walked to the hole in the wall where he came in- the thing had been tripled in size by the forced entry that had woken him before. 

Even though his heart was calm, he suddenly found himself running, his legs picking up speed until he was in a full-tilted sprint. Was he smiling? Yes, the night air was so cool and bright, and he felt more excited than he ever had before. Tonight had been an important night. Something had changed. For reasons he couldn’t comprehend, he felt unimaginably happy.

The run didn’t let up until he reached home again. And as he slowed, approaching the door, he realized something- no one went to that warehouse. Tomorrow, what was left of that man would likely still be there. He would like to see it again. He already couldn’t wait to go back.

“Where were you?” His mother asked when he made it there, her eyes wet with worry. “I was getting scared!”

“Sorry, mum,” Zolf replied. “I fell asleep at the playground. I’m okay.”

The first part was a lie, and so was the second.

He was more than okay.

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about putting this in ‘The Madman and the Worm’ series, but ultimately didn’t, because Kimblee doesn’t recall this in any of those stories so it wouldn’t make sense. Still, consider it a spiritual member!


End file.
